


Pictures of You

by WhenTheCanonShootsOnlyBlanks



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Angst, F/F, Mourning, Relapse, Sadness, Set after 2x12, Spoilers for Season 2, Tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 21:20:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7986592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenTheCanonShootsOnlyBlanks/pseuds/WhenTheCanonShootsOnlyBlanks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after 2x12. </p><p>You don't realize what you have until it is gone. Similarly, you don't know what it is you don't have until it is impossible to get it back. </p><p>Luisa realizes that now Rose is dead, she will never have a picture of the two of them together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pictures of You

**Author's Note:**

> So this was an idea that I had, it wasn't the happiest, but I was being forced to write it by some known angst-lovers (you know who you are)  
> So I decided that if I had to suffer, you all have to suffer. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Luisa stared at the headrest in front of her, unseeing. Some time ago, she was not quite sure how much, a doctor or a cop or somebody had told her Susanna needed to rest and had taken her outside and loaded her into the back of a car to take her home.

Luisa hadn’t protested; she hadn’t done much of anything. The only two images going through her head were Susanna’s concerned, yet pained frown and the unseeing blue eyes of the woman she’d had once called the love of her life.

It was her fault. All of it. Susanna getting shot. Rose dying it was all on her.

Suddenly the empty feeling in her chest was filled with a poisonous cocktail of anguish and guilt. Her shoulders started shocking and after hours of numbness, tears started streaming down her face.

_“You set me up?”_

_“I came here to say goodbye.”_

_“You set me up?”_

_You set me up?” “_

The last words Rose had spoken to her, the last words she would _ever_ speak to her, echoed through her head. Because she was dead. And it was all Luisa’s fault.

The words haunted her, spinning through her head accompanied by Rose’s betrayed expression, making her crying worse until she could barely breathe.

She had done this. She had killed Rose, she had gotten Susanna hurt. She had let it all happen because she needed _closure_.

Her load sobs made way for a short burst of laughter, more pained than her bawling had been.

She had definitely gotten closure out of this plan.

The car stopped in front of the Marbella, the last place Luisa wanted to be but the only place she could go.

Everything from the color of the couches to the paintings on the wall had been picked by Rose. They’d had a good laugh about those paintings when Rose had first picked them out. Rafael and her father had never even noticed, so Rafael hadn’t changed a thing after they learned who Rose was, so everything at the hotel reminded Luisa of Rose.

She kept her head down as she took the elevator up to her floor, not wanting anyone to see her tears.

As soon as the door fell shut behind her, and she was alone for the first time that day, her knees gave out and she collapsed onto the floor, her body heaving with sobs.

She cried until she couldn’t anymore, every last tear shed. She then dragged herself over to the couch, wrapping her arms tightly around her knees, staring into space.

She could really use a drink right now, and the only thing that stopped her was the fact that she couldn’t move. She was frozen in place, staring at a picture on the dresser across from her.

It was an old picture, taken when she was around 4, she was sitting on her father’s shoulders as her mother laughed at the camera.

For years, this had been one of the only pictures of her mother. The woman who had been gone from her life before she even really got to know her. And after her father died, _got murdered_ , it was now also the picture she remembered her father by.

Suddenly a thought shook her, and with a strength she didn’t know she had, she pushed herself off the couch and stumble into her bedroom, pulling a box from underneath her bed.

She frantically searched through the mementos, but as she had feared, there was nothing. Not one picture of Rose.

Luisa took a shaky breath. Rose was gone, forever, and she didn’t even have a picture of her to remember her by.

Of course, she could probably ask Rafael what he had done with their family photographs, whatever few of them there were. But Rafael would question why and probably call her insane because Luisa couldn’t lie about wanting a picture of Rose.

And even if she got a hold of their family’s pictures. All the pictures of Rose would most likely also be of her father. And that was problematic for a whole myriad of reasons.

First off, Rose had killed him. Which was a very good reason not to put any of those pictures on display. And second, a picture of Rose with her father was not something Luisa wanted to remember Rose by.  It would be a constant reminder of the fact that Rose had chosen her father over her.

For over five years, they had been sleeping together behind her father’s back, and now Rose was gone and she had nothing to remember the good times by.

Rose had always been adamant that no pictures of their time together could be taken. And Luisa had abided by that. She hadn’t wanted her father to find out almost as much as Rose did. But now she was upset that she hadn’t broken that rule just once. Just one picture to remember Rose by.

She fell down onto her side, and curled up into a ball, more tears staining her sheets.

She missed her. She missed Rose. She had been trying for months now to forget about Rose, to stop loving her, but she couldn’t. This plan with the police had been a last-ditch attempt to get over Rose, to _prove_ that she was over Rose. And as always seemed to happen to her, it had backfired _spectacularly_.

She wasn’t over Rose, would probably never be. And now Rose was dead and she didn’t even have a picture to remember her by.

Luisa hugged her knees closer to her and cried softly until she fell asleep.

* * *

She awoke not much later, her throat sore and her eyes stinging but for a few blissful seconds she clung to her dream before reality set in.

The dream had seemed familiar; like she’d dreamt it before. She and Rose had been in bed together. Rose was asleep on her stomach, her red curls spread out across the pillow underneath her head, half obscuring her face. The sheet had slid of her back somewhere during the night, so the many constellations of orangey freckles covering Rose’s soft, pale skin were visible.

Luisa had wanted to reach out and trace them, but at the same time she didn’t want to disturb Rose. It was so rare Rose spent the night that Luisa was afraid Rose would leave if she woke her up. So instead she watched. She watched and against Rose’s rule, she took a picture.

She frowned as that particular part of the dream surfaced. It did all seem very familiar… And much more detailed than any of her other dreams.

And suddenly she remembered. That _hadn’t_ been a dream. That morning _had_ happened, and she _had_ taken a forbidden picture, because Rose had looked so angelic in that moment she had wanted to save it forever.

She scrambled to retrieve her phone, needing to know if the picture was still there.

It didn’t take long to find. She hadn’t taken a lot of pictures the last couple of months.

It was a _bad_ picture. It was blurry in a non-artistic way. It was dark and grainy and Rose was generally unrecognizable except for her hair, which Luisa guessed Rose would have appreciated. But it was all she had. The only picture of Rose that didn’t have her father in it and that hadn’t been used by the police or on the news. A picture that was just between her and Rose.

And in a way, the picture symbolized their entire relationship perfectly: Rose had never truly been there, she had always had to go back to a different bed, a different life at some point during their encounters. So why should Luisa have a good picture of Rose? One where she could stay in forever.

More tears had started rolling down her cheeks as she looked at the picture, making it even blurrier.

She stared at the picture, not quite believing that all there was left of Rose now was this grainy picture. Because Rose had always been so sharp in her mind, so well defined. Just, always present, always there. She had _known_ Rose. Or at least she had thought she did. As it turned out, she hadn’t known Rose at all. Still didn’t. And thanks to her own selfishness, now she never would.

She cried as she remembered when the only problem keeping Rose and her apart had been that she was married to her father. It seemed laughably small now, after everything that happened. But it was the reason that the only picture she had of Rose was the one she was now staring at on the small screen of her phone.

The passage of time only became clear to Luisa once her screen flickered once and then died, taking the pixelated image of a sleeping Rose with it.

Luisa stared at the black screen for a few seconds before tossing her phone to the other side of the bed. This was pathetic. _She_ was pathetic. Crying over a woman who had done all those horrible things to her. Staring at her picture like it was a lifeline. She needed to move on, to forget. And she knew just the thing to help her do that.

* * *

The alcohol hadn’t helped her forget about Rose, and within half a bottle of vodka, she was staring at the picture again, tracing Rose’s outline on the paper.

She had decided to print the picture, make it something more tangible, something more real. It hadn’t done the quality any favors, but Luisa was too drunk to care. She just wanted to look at the image of the woman she killed, the woman she loved, the woman she would always love.

* * *

She looked at Susanna sitting on her couch, the blonde’s arm in a sling. The hospital had discharged her that morning and the first thing Susanna had done was gone to check on Luisa. Which caused Luisa to feel guilty about two things: 1 she was the reason Susanna had gotten shot, 2 Susanna was not the woman she had been thinking about all night. And she should have. Susanna was nice and caring and _hadn’t_ killed her father. And most importantly, she was currently alive and right there with her, making sure she was okay.

And yet, she had no idea what to say to Susanna, so instead she doted on her. Finding that her medical training had never really left her, even the subject she hadn’t practiced in years were still clear in her mind. It was a welcome distraction, it took her mind off the alcohol and for a little while, also off Rose.

But she couldn’t help looking at her phone, looking at the picture. The only picture she had of Rose.

She looked at it so much even Susanna noticed after a while, asking what she was looking at.

Luisa couldn’t tell her the truth. Because while Susanna would probably understand, it would also hurt her. And Luisa didn’t want to hurt the other woman any more than she already had. But she couldn’t lie about it either. So she told her anyway.

* * *

The whole thing was just wrong, Rose _knew_ that was it was wrong. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, she should have never gotten this close to Luisa, should have never let her see. But there was nothing she could do now to fix it without ruining everything.

She could see Luisa was hurting, could see that it was taking the brunette everything to keep it together in front of her. But just how deep Luisa’s sorrow went became clear when Luisa showed her the blurry picture of herself.

She didn’t know when it had been taken, hadn’t even know _that_ it had been taken. And even if it was hard to be sure, she knew she was looking at herself in Luisa’s bed.

‘It’s the only picture I have of her,’ Luisa said, biting her lip to keep from crying.

Rose wanted to rip off her mask right then, tell Luisa she was alive and that they would have all the time in the world to take more pictures. But she couldn’t, not yet.

‘Can I?’ Rose asked, asking for Luisa’s phone.

Luisa nodded, handing the device over and wiping at the tears staining her cheeks.

Rose quickly attached the picture to an email, sending it to herself before giving Luisa her phone back. She couldn’t fix this right now, but there was something else she could do for Luisa.

* * *

Rose had never felt this guilty in her life; Luisa was drinking again. Because of her. Because she gotten too close, had selfishly gotten Luisa involved while she knew she should have just kept her distance and let Luisa live her life, without her in in it.

But no, when the opportunity had presented itself for Rose to have _both_ Luisa and the money, she had taken it. Sparing no thought of Luisa’s feelings in any of the things having both required her to do.

After all these years, thinking of others was still something she struggled with and she knew it would never come naturally. Even with Luisa, who she cared about more than anyone else.

‘Here,’ she said, pressing the developed picture into Luisa’s hands.

‘How- How did you? How?’ Luisa stammered, looking between her and the much clearer picture she was now holding in her hands.

How was a good question indeed. After seeing the low quality of the image, Rose had decided that if Luisa was going to spent the next couple of weeks thinking she was dead, she could at least have a better picture to look at and remember her by.

Her original plan had been to use the software at the police station to clean up the picture. But the quality had been so bad that the only thing she had achieved was to create some more brightly lit pixels. The camera was just too low-grade and the room had just been too dark.

So, Rose had come up with a slightly more creative solution which also required a lot more work, but that was the least she could do after everything she had put Luisa through.

Recreating the picture perfectly had been difficult. For one, her hair color and length were no longer the same and she no longer had access to the room the picture had been taken in as Luisa had since moved.

So it had required some clever staging, but after a couple of hours and a familiar wig, Rose had recreated the picture perfectly. This time with a good camera and better lighting.

Luisa traced a pattern between the freckles on Rose’s back, now visible on the picture.

‘Thank you,’ Luisa said, her brown eyes shining with tears. ‘Thank you!’ she whispered as she wrapped her arms tightly around Rose’s waist, mindful of her injured shoulder.

Rose nodded, _if only Luisa knew_. ‘I thought you might need an actual photograph, because there are no phones allowed in rehab,’ she said, putting on a warm comforting smile.

Luisa nodded. ‘This is the best thing you could ever have given me as a parting present. Thank you,’ Luisa said again.

‘Oh, I am going to visit you when it’s allowed,’ Rose said.

‘I would like that,’ Luisa said softly, a small smile appearing on her face for the first time since Rose’s “death”.

* * *

Rose smiled as she swiped through the pictures on her phone, ever since she and Luisa had run away together, she had made a point of it to take a picture of the two of them together. Because right now the world was at their feet, but in the case something were to happen or if they had to split up for a little while, she wanted Luisa to have an actual picture of the two of them. Together. Happy.

Luisa had laughed when Rose had first told her about the idea, but after a couple of days it had grown on her, and their pictures had gotten more elaborate. But if Rose was being honest, yesterday’s one would always be her favorite.

She grinned as she attached the picture to an email. Typing in the official Miami PD address before writing a short message to the cops still trying to catch them. She knew it was just a childish taunt, but she couldn’t help it. She had gotten everything she wanted and the police were left with nothing.

As the email bounced into space and returned to earth thousands of miles away from their location, Rose looked back at the picture and smiled.

They looked happy. Luisa had been wrapped securely in her arms, her white dress beautifully setting off her tan skin. The flowers in her hair making her look like a goddess and the smile on her face more brilliant than any Rose  And why shouldn’t they look happy? It had been their wedding day after all.

**Author's Note:**

> You didn't think I wouldn't give this a happy ending, right? I am the queen of fluff! I couldn't just keep it sad!
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading and comments would be very much appreciated.


End file.
